Performance Assessment and Social Research

The course aims to provide knowledge and application tools to carry out empirical research, analyse and critically evaluate research results, evaluate public administration results and interact with research institutes and agencies with methodological expertise.
Students will be introduced to the logic that guides the design, implementation and critical analysis of empirical research and the results evaluation processes.
The programme is divided into three modules: the first two modules deal with the acquisition of the language of social research, with an overview of the main methods and techniques of social research, including polls and surveys, as well as qualitative research methods (discursive interviews, focus groups and ethnography) and mixed methods. These methods and techniques are presented with a focus on their use in the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of interventions, services and policies. The third module provides an in-depth study of the methods and tools for examining evaluation and control systems in public administrations, from an economic and business perspective. In particular, it examines some of the main types of controls and assessments commonly used in the Italian public administration; in addition, it also analyses the organizational and managerial implications connected to the workings of the evaluation and control systems in public companies.

At the end of the course students will be able to:
- recognize and classify the conceptual devices and tools used in the multi-faceted fields of the epistemology of the social sciences and methodology of social research, and identify them in different disciplines and approaches: philosophy, sociology, politics, economics, psychology, pedagogy, etc.
- rework ethical problems and the moral dilemmas encountered when conducting empirical research;
- identify and interpret the evaluation systems currently in use in the Italian public administration, how they have evolved and the reasons hindering-preventing their development;
- critically compare the different methodologies and alternative theories-practices for conducting empirical research;
- distinguish and systemically analyse the main dimensions of an evaluation and control system;
- examine, from an economic and business perspective, the workings of an assessment and control system in the public sphere.